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The pair of Toronto investigators arrived at the auto parts shop in late September with a vehicle identification number — a unique code that acts as a vehicle’s fingerprints.

Soon, the shop owner said, police officers were poring over surveillance video of alleged killer Bruce McArthur selling his rusted maroon Dodge Caravan to the parts shop. Police seized the vehicle and had it towed from the shop’s yard.

Dominic Vetere is the owner of Dom's Auto Parts in Courtice, where a van beloning to Bruce McArthur was found in September by Toronto investigators. (Julien Gignac
/ Toronto Star)

“As I understand it, this van was a fairly big part of them putting the puzzle together,” said Dominic Vetere, owner of Dom’s Auto Parts in Courtice, just outside Oshawa.

The officers’ late September visit to the auto parts shop reveals investigators have been pursuing McArthur since at least the fall, months before police tried to publicly dispel fears that there was a serial killer targeting Toronto’s Gay Village.

The 66-year-old McArthur is charged with murdering two men — Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman — missing from the Church and Wellesley area. Toronto police allege he may also be responsible for the deaths of more men.

Homicide detectives told the Star on Saturday that they would not comment on specific aspects of the investigation, including one report that investigators found blood stains in the trunk of a vehicle they recovered from an auto yard.

“The investigation is now before the courts and we have a prosecution to protect,” Det. David Dickinson said in an email.

According to Vetere, McArthur visited his auto shop on Sept. 16. Employee Harry Cribb said the man was just like any other person coming in to sell their old car.

“He was very calm, just like a normal guy,” Cribb said. “There was nothing out of the ordinary about him at all. He didn’t look like he was worried, upset, nothing.”

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Cribb said the only thing that he found “kind of weird” was that McArthur accepted the first price he offered — $125. People usually barter, he said.

But McArthur’s decision to go to Dom’s Auto Parts that September day may have proven fateful. Unlike some auto shops, Vetere always keeps a record of his cars’ vehicle identification numbers, also known as VINs.

So about a week or so later, when Toronto police officers showed up looking for a specific vehicle, he was able to quickly find it in his computer system.

“The police started in Toronto and were moving out to places like mine with the VIN to try to track this van down,” he said.

The van, a 2004 model, was still in his scrap yard and mostly intact. The mechanic had removed just a few parts, such as the battery and the wheels, as well as drained it of fluids, Vetere said.

“It still looked fairly complete,” he said. “If he was trying to get rid of the car, if he was smart he would have taken it to a place where he knows they’ll put it directly into a press, which we don’t do. We keep the car here for parts for a while.”

Investigators took some kind of DNA samples from the mechanic who handled the vehicle, Vetere said.

“They didn’t tell me what case it was, they just said it was an important case to them,” he said.

Vetere said the van was old and ready to be recycled. He said his shop didn’t notice any obvious stains in the vehicle.

On Friday, citing an unnamed source, CP24 reported that McArthur was intercepted by police when he allegedly tried to enter an auto wrecking yard with a vehicle that had blood in the trunk.

This blood evidence was then used to obtain a search warrant for McArthur’s Thorncliffe apartment, according to CP24. When contacted by the Star, Homicide Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga said he would not comment on the accuracy of anonymous source reports.

Meanwhile, investigators on Saturday continued their searches of four properties in Toronto and a house in Madoc, about 200 kilometres northeast of the city.

Investigators, some dressed in biohazard gear, scoured the yard of a house on Mallory Cres. near Bayview and Moore Aves., in Toronto, where a forensics tent had also been set up.

At one point, a man and a woman told a police officer that they are the owners of the property. When approached by a Star reporter, they declined to be interviewed.

Kevin Lahey has lived next door to the house for three years and said police have been in the area since Thursday. He said he has seen McArthur in the area “hundreds of times.”

“He drives a red van and he used to come here all the time, especially in the summer,” he said. “He would come three or four times a day.”

Lahey said his attempts to greet McArthur were always ignored.

“He never said a word back to me,” he said.

Lahey said he thought McArthur was using the house for storage. “I think it was some sort of business-related relationship,” he said.

Stephen Haskett, another neighbour, also often saw McArthur tending the lawn and storing plants. The ongoing police investigations are “creepy,” he said.

“You’d like to think ‘not in my backyard,’ but that’s not true,” he said. “The place is swarming with cops and the news. It’s a quiet little cul-de-sac. It’s all just very strange.”

In the rural township of Madoc, the Ontario Provincial Police and Toronto forensic crews are also searching a nine-acre property on Cooper Rd.

Rick Costello said he owned the property for 17 years until May 2017, when he sold it to a man from Ireland named Brendan Horan.

But Costello said it was Horan’s brother, Roger, who lived in the property. Roger Horan is also linked to a Scarborough house that is now being searched by police, which is owned by Brendan and Patricia Horan, according to property records.

Costello said Horan kept exotic birds, such as parrots, in the garage.

“This Roger seemed like a really nice, gentle guy,” he said.

Horan did not respond to an email sent Saturday. Homicide detectives on Saturday also said they would not comment “on Roger Horan’s status in this investigation.”

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